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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23979958">The Year King</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nyanoka/pseuds/Nyanoka'>Nyanoka</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Creature Feature: Into the NZMSverse [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types, Pocket Monsters: Sword &amp; Shield | Pokemon Sword &amp; Shield Versions</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Alternate Universe - No Pokemon, Anal Sex, Breeding Kink, Brief rimming, Changing Tenses, Consensual Sex, Gothic, Interspecies Relationship(s), Interspecies Sex, Knotting, M/M, Mild Cum Inflation, Mild Lactation Kink, Non-Linear Narrative, Outdoor Sex, POV Alternating, POV Outsider, Pregnancy Kink, Size Difference, Species Change</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 19:20:49</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>14,949</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23979958</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nyanoka/pseuds/Nyanoka</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>There's something in the woods.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Masaru | Victor/Nezu | Piers</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Creature Feature: Into the NZMSverse [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2088546</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>50</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Storge</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Every tag needs a "trashy/odd" AU imo and since I'm the only one here right now, it falls to me to make it. </p><p>I have been rather discouraged lately (low Kudos but large hit count discrepancy which is...ah...incredibly disheartening), but I am glad enough to add another piece to the tag. Closing in on double digits which is nice. ೕ(•̀ㅂ•́ )</p><p>I juggled with going into the actual and "un-scrubbed"  themes that the original tales have (ie. not Disney), and the themes that are prevalent in the "Animal Bride/Groom" subset of fairy tales (actually very fascinating if you want to delve into that), but ultimately, I wanted something more "bestial" and to blend modern with "primitive" in terms of setting. Something whimsical and mysterious though the former is a bit...off in a certain section.</p><p>Also had to choose a few names for since otherwise, I'd be forced to write "Victor's Mum" for example a ridiculous number of times. I think the choice is rather appropriate considering what the names reference and subtext.</p><p>As an aside, if you've read The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood, you'll probably get what the themes and ideas of this fic are from the title, not that it's an entire "one-for-one" of course. All chapters are also done and will be posted soon. I hate posting unfinished pieces, so I usually finish them (chapters) before I do.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Beasts—true beasts and not the mimicries of film and circus shows—are the things of fiction: the exaggerated whimsy of wives’ tale, the mishappened creatures of folklore and fictitious history long gone, and the lurking nightmares of children’s tales.</p><p>They are simply things meant to scare, to subdue a rowdy child into obedience without the clicking snap of a worn belt or the whispering curl of a self-plucked branch.</p><p>They are the things of ignorance, of ancient history and foolish, irrational explanations, akin to Jupiter or any other number of pagan deities, and the things meant to be discarded once one grew up—meant to be shelved alongside the paint-chipped toys and alongside childhood fancy.</p><p>There are no such things as beasts, no such thing as monsters—faces taut and lined as the bark of a wide-bellied oak or perhaps furred and ovine with horns curling and rivaling that of the devils borne from the minds of long dead painters.</p><p>They are the fallacies of men, the domineering delegates of the uneducated, and the boogeymen of children.</p><p>Beasts—they simply aren’t welcomed in the modern age, in any time pass the innocence of adolescence.</p><p>That is what Eliza believes, what a modern woman <em>should</em> believe.</p><p>There are no such things as monsters, no such thing as beasts or fairies or any other assortment of allegorical claptrap. Beasts, monsters, creatures. They all only exist to scare children and draw laughter from drunken adults—glass bottles grasped in hand and asses sitting precariously upon the porch railing after the kids have been put to bed.</p><p>Nonetheless, she knows the stories well. She had grown up upon the same tales after all, the same malarkey, scrambled from years of oral tradition and embellishment, and the same foolish terror—weeping women wandering by the bayous, child-stealing imps, and multitudes of other half-phantasms.</p><p>But still, she couldn’t quite dismiss them all entirely as fabrication. Much like everything else in the world, there is a grain of truth to them, bits and pieces taken from antiquity and mortal fear and then distorted into near-unrecognizable forms.</p><p>Drowned women—whether by personal cowardice or perhaps by murder—become banshees and bog witches, pedophiles become imps and pied pipers, rapists become vampires and incubuses.</p><p>The list simply continues on and on, reality bent and drawn into fantasy like the limbs of a quartered man.</p><p>It certainly doesn’t help that Postwick itself is a haven for this particular brand of foolishness.</p><p>A town in the midst of change: gas lampposts exchanged for sleek designs and electricity, iron-wrought lanterns usurped from their thrones beside the doorways by lightbulbs and porchlight, and cobblestone pathways upturned for modern, standardized grey.</p><p>That is Postwick at its essence—a town rightfully upended, enticed, and pulled into the present by necessity and worldly innovation. Just like with the horse-drawn carriages and with the soot-adorned boys, there is no room in Postwick—in Galar really—for monsters, for the fairy tales of old.</p><p>No place outside of the storybook or a museum exhibit anyhow.</p><p>And as these places often are, ignorance breeds and flourishes, goaded forward and coddled by tradition, happenstance, and circumstance—a chicken’s disappearance blamed instead upon a mangy beast rather than a husband’s foolhardy wager, a child’s death upon a spirit’s curse rather than a poor immune system, and so forth.</p><p>Everyone wants a fantastical explanation, some stranger’s or monstrosity’s ill will rather than the simplest explanation—poor luck and poorer sense.</p><p>Everyone wants to be unique.</p><p>As such, Postwick is a haven for this particular sort of tomfoolery, for traveling quack doctors, eager for their next victim, and for self-proclaimed witches—women with too much time and too little sense for honest work and burgeoning with an excess of hubris, conceit bubbling underneath their shrill squawks like the cauldron brew they work over.</p><p>She certainly doesn’t have any vendetta against herbalists, actually knowledgeable folk and not the sort who stirred belladonna with moonshine and dandelion and called it a remedy. Though still, perhaps she should concede on one point. It is a cure in some sense of the word.</p><p>Death is certainly a cure, but it isn’t the sort most sought when consulting a healer.</p><p>And moreover, she herself is a modern woman—born and bred in rural Postwick yet well-read and sensible. To believe in fabrication would be nothing more than folly—an insult to her time, to her intellect, and to herself.</p><p>There are no such things as monsters. Instead, there are only humans—evil hidden beneath an amicable face and swathed in sweet words.</p><p><em>Monsters would be easier to deal with</em>, she thinks. Much like with wild game, one could simply shoot them without a second thought. With men and women alike, one must act civilized, bring them to court and argue with words and with nuance. Grudges and arguments couldn’t—shouldn’t—be settled with fists or swords or anything of that ilk.</p><p>Not anymore anyhow. They are civilized folk, nothing like their ancestors and their rituals—sheep’s blood spilled into bowls and poured onto the brown earth, animal fat and food scraped into fire, and harvest festivals commenced with sharpened iron and trembling, baying flesh.</p><p>Monsters, much like Postwick’s history, are the things of daydreams and textbooks. They are history, faded sketches and misrepresented ideas akin to elephant skulls and cyclopes or perhaps mermaids and manatees.</p><p>They are nothing more than a testament to and a reminder of worser days and intolerable ignorance.</p><p>It is as simple as that.</p><p>That is her belief.</p>
<hr/><p>“Postwick is a town that swallows you whole,” her grandmother had said. Though, Eliza hadn’t put too much stock into it.</p><p>Even at the age of five, Eliza had understood the clichés of those sorts of statements, more fit for one of those black-and-white films on television than for a woman aged one hundred twenty-one. Words such as that were simply meant to frighten, to cow her into silence and into early bedtime.</p><p>Personally, Eliza, as disrespectful as it is in hindsight, had found her grandmother’s appearance more terrifying—saggy flesh near dripping like gobbets of old paint, speckles of brown upon wrinkled flesh and reminiscent of an overripe pear, and hands bony as a vulture’s talons.</p><p>In Eliza’s opinion, her stories had been nowhere near as terrifying as her appearance, but her mother, in true mother fashion, had forced her to spend time with her grandmother.</p><p>“She won’t be here forever, Eliza,” her mother had chided. “Spend time with her. You could stand to learn more about Postwick.”</p><p>And that had been that. No arguments, no pleas, nothing. Not if she didn’t want a scolding or to be sent to bed without dinner anyhow.</p><p>At the very least, her grandmother had been a good storyteller. As childish as her subject matters had often been and despite her presumed senility, she had known how to set a mood.</p><p>Beside the fireplace and sitting cross-legged upon the warm fur rug, Eliza had listened to her grandmother’s tales. Her voice, akin to the low groan of a heaving tree, had rambled on about a number of things—from the more whimsical picaresque with Robin Hood and his ilk to the commonplace fairy ring; mushrooms breaching their earthen tombs like hands raised in prayer, and gold-stealing goblins, sneers revealing crooked teeth, to the more forlorn: hanged witches, lamenting spirits, and snatched children.</p><p>It is a testament to Postwick’s character when these sorts of stories are considered age appropriate for a child, but nonetheless, her own mother hadn’t complained about the choice of bedtime stories. Rather, she sometimes joined them after her nightly smoke, taking a spot in her Lawson chair across from her mother’s rocking chair.</p><p>That had been her nightly routine for a number of years, from age five to age thirteen even. Her grandmother never seemed to tire of her stories nor did she run out of them. Perhaps she repeated one on some occasions, but for the most part, she never repeated a story two nights in a row—continued one from the night before perhaps but never repeated.</p><p>Though oddly enough, her grandmother never spoke of the forest to the western edge of their town and their own property—the Slumbering Weald as many call it. It is a rather foolish moniker in her opinion, overly theatrical, but it fits in some vein she supposes. The near-perpetual fog and mugginess in the deeper sections made the place a rather difficult one to navigate, but it did add a certain mystique to it, a fantastical quality akin to Sherwood’s legends or Uffmoor’s rumored curative.</p><p>Naturally, as she grew older, Eliza had questioned her grandmother on the matter. With consideration to her grandmother’s propensity for fairy tales and the forest’s rather peculiar qualities, surely her grandmother would have spoken on it already?</p><p>Surely, the fence didn’t need to be that high or to be made of solid wood rather than a simple chain link?</p><p>The watchmen were rather curious as well, and she doubted that they even knew the reason for their positions—traditions are rather curious matters in Postwick, always followed even if the reason had been long forgotten—but she hadn’t outright ask about that.</p><p>Instead, she had merely asked for a story about the woods. That is simple enough, or so she had assumed.</p><p>She remembers how her grandmother had tensed then, nails digging into the arms of her chair and tense silence descending. She had expected a scolding then or perhaps a lecture but that hadn’t come.</p><p>Instead, her grandmother, after what felt like minutes of silence, had simply spoken, lips drawn thin and milky white eyes scrutinizing.</p><p>“There’s something in the woods.”</p><p>And that had been that, no fanciful embellishment nor elaboration. It is an entirely unsatisfactory answer but prodding further had not helped. Her grandmother had remained tightlipped, quite unlike her normal self.</p><p>Perhaps if she had been more curious, more rambunctious and mischievous and less skeptical, she would have snuck into the woods, gone to the library for research, or perhaps prodded further until her grandmother finally relented.</p><p>But she hadn’t. It isn’t a sensible sort of idea. She doesn’t truly believe her grandmother’s stories, as admittedly well-told as they are, and she doubts that the library would have anything factual and relevant—more legends and perhaps information on the general fauna and flora but nothing else, nothing specific.</p><p>Certainly, there could be something in there, but rather than a monster as her grandmother’s words had implied, it would most likely be an overly large bear or something of that sort.</p><p>It would be something explainable.</p>
<hr/><p>She hadn’t meant to stay in Postwick but like many women, love and age had shackled her.</p><p>Dreams are hard to hold onto as one grew older, as one grew more tired. That is a law of life. Simply put, it is easier to dream when one had no obligations, no worries and no bills—electricity, water, heating, phone and accompanying internet, and a plethora of others, both minor and looming.</p><p>Certainly, she had tasks—feed the herding dogs, milk the cows, and so forth—but those had been tempered by the niceties of childhood: warmed walnuts kept in an iron bowl and eaten beside the fire, homemade cake and home-churned vanilla ice cream for every birthday, and the croon of a mother’s lullaby.</p><p>Life then had been kind, burdens lighter or perhaps merely unnoticed.</p><p>But like everyone else, the fine paint of childhood had eventually flaked, revealing the anxieties of adulthood and like creeping vines, those had overwhelmed her ambitions. It wasn’t quite strangulation—she still had her hopes after all—but still, it isn’t quite like a gentle caress either.</p><p>Nonetheless, why leave home when one had to help run the farm? Feed the dogs, shear the sheep, procure the weekly groceries from the local grocer?</p><p>It isn’t quite strangulation, but it is close—life as it is.</p><p>Perhaps that was why she had been drawn to Adam. Outside of his age—a decade over her then twenty-four—he hadn’t been anything objectively special. Hell, their courtship itself had been rather bland, not in emotion—that had been a whirlwind like many romances—but in content.</p><p>No nightly trysts in the cornfield, no secret mistresses or cheating scandals, nothing.</p><p>He had been the typical sort for the men of their town: dark-haired, tall, and burly. Rather unsurprising considering Postwick’s history and specialty—they are a town of farmers, herdsmen, and woodsmen after all—but still, there is a comfort in that, in his orthodox nature, gruff yet kind, and in the stability it brought.</p><p>She hadn’t needed any surprises then, alone as she had been then—mother having been taken by lung cancer years prior and grandmother buried in the plot in the southern part of town. Naturally, she had friends, but they all had their own lives—Justine certainly had her hands full with Leon by then—and she doesn’t expect them to drop everything for her alone. She isn’t that selfish.</p><p>On the courtship itself, it had been a standard affair—cliché and filled with love letters, flowers, and little trinkets of affection: hand-carved wooden sculptures that fit into the palm of her hand, baubles he bought from the town over, and candies from the traveling merchants.</p><p>She hadn’t hated it. Instead, it had been a warm sort of affair. Slow and winding perhaps, but lovely all the same.</p><p>In a quiet ceremony two years after, they had married, surrounded by friends and family.</p><p>And soon after that, a baby boy had followed.</p>
<hr/><p>“We are a line of women,” her grandmother had once said. “Daughter borne to daughter. We haven’t had a man in our bloodline for centuries.”</p><p>Outside of his gender, Victor hadn’t been all too special in the objective sense, a bit on the small side perhaps but plain in every other aspect: brown hair, brown eyes, and a healthy pink to his fair skin. He had cried as expected as well, no bizarre or worrisome silence.</p><p>All and all, it had been a standard affair, a standard birth with nothing out of place.</p><p>Even the location had been a bit more out of the ordinary than Victor himself—the sterilized white of a hospital room rather than the rugged brown walls of the midwife’s house. Unlike her own birth and those of her mother and grandmother, Victor’s birth had taken place in Wedgehurst Central Hospital.</p><p>Wedgehurst isn’t all too special either outside of Professor Magnolia’s lab and the Saturday flea market—nowhere near as bustling as Hammerlocke or as exotic as Ballonlea—but it is better than Postwick at the very least, less roaming sheep and less neighbors knocking on the door to borrow sugar.</p><p>Nevertheless, despite his plainness—or perhaps because of it—she had felt the bud of love rise within her chest.</p><p>Victor. It is a strong name, paradoxically extravagant in its meaning, “conqueror,” but plain in sound, lips pressed together in the beginning of the phrase before softly blowing and fading, wispy and fleeting as the clouds above.</p><p>But still, it had been her husband’s choice of name. It is a bit unorthodox—usually the women in her family bestow the name—but it was a flimsy tradition in her opinion.</p><p>Did it really matter which of the parents gave the name so long as it were given with love? She didn’t think so, and her husband had agreed. Much like some of Postwick’s other traditions—the watchmen, the sunset curfew for the children, the fence’s continued maintenance—it is one that belonged more in the past than in the present.</p><p>In her opinion, what matters is love and health, and Victor had both.</p><p>He is a healthy boy, plain in all inherent qualities, when they bring him home.</p>
<hr/><p>Victor is a normal boy in most respects. He cries when saddened, he eats when hungry, and he sleeps when tired, late-rising without an alarm set.</p><p>But, he doesn’t speak, not as much as he should anyway. He’s quiet, near-nonverbal to everyone but herself and Justine’s boys. Even with them, Victor prefers to speak through gestures, expressions, or written word rather than through his voice.</p><p>It isn’t a deficiency of the head—she already brought him to a specialist for that—or of the body.  Victor speaks, but it isn’t often. Instead, he merely peers at them, eyes inquisitive, before nodding or shaking his head—yes or no in the simplest terms. On some occasions, he would grimace or frown, often in response to chores, though he never quite smiled.</p><p>She had brought him to a specialist for that as well, but much like with the previous ones, he had merely shrugged—suggested that perhaps Victor’s refusal to speak was because of trauma resulting from his father’s death.</p><p>That isn’t quite right either in her opinion, not because of a lack of connection—they had both sobbed when he had passed, an accidental drowning in the bayou while fishing—but because of timing. Victor’s lack of conventional speech had been a problem years before Adam’s death during Victor’s fourth year of existence.</p><p>Victor had neither been a late-bloomer when it came to speech nor had he been a genius. Instead, he had been merely average in that respect, uttering a call of “Mama!” at roughly a year of age. Yet, he never quite spoke much afterwards. Once again, it isn’t a deficiency of the brain—she has heard him string together sentences before, and he reads well enough—but a deliberate choice on his part.</p><p>Victor is odd, queer in the half-sense of the word. If he had merely been strange in every sense, perhaps she wouldn’t find it so bizarre. Instead, Victor is uncanny, teetering the line between normalcy and the grotesque.</p><p>His strangeness certainly isn’t helped by his fascination with the forest. Eliza understands a bit of interest—she remembers the curiosity of childhood, and his room is on the western end of their house with a window facing the area as well; there isn’t much else to stare at—but his interest, or fixation rather, extends far pass the point of “normal” in her opinion.</p><p>She remembers frequently finding him like that—face near-pressed against the glass of the window and peering between the iron security bars. If she hadn’t known better, she would say that he had been searching for something what with the intensity of his gaze and all.</p><p>It had been cute on the first occasion, akin to a child seeing a first snowfall, and she hadn’t thought much of it initially. It had been near-sunset then, and it is a pretty sort of event to witness.</p><p>However, when she had asked on the matter, voice bemused, Victor hadn’t even turned, let alone reply to her. Strange, but she had dismissed it then as well. Victor has always been a quiet child, unintentionally secretive at times, and she hadn’t seen the harm in his staring.</p><p>Not until she finds Victor there once more on the next night and the nights thereafter—always looking, almost waiting even, just as the sun began to set or sometime after. There isn’t quite a rhythm to the hour and minutes.</p><p>It unnerves her, makes her regret having asked Adam to move Victor’s belongings there rather than fix the leak—rainwater—in the ceiling of Victor’s original room years earlier. She just hadn’t thought much of it then either.</p><p>It had simply seemed like a nice idea at the time. It had been a spacious room, much more so than Victor’s then current nursery, and it had seemed like a waste to use it as a mere storage space. The walls weren’t rotted, the ceiling didn’t leak, and the one window had security bars on it, most likely to keep out burglars.</p><p>It had seemed like a good idea at the time.</p><p>She couldn’t have simply ask Victor to re-move his belongings once more either, not without a sufficient explanation. It would seem—be—odd considering that it had been his room for years. So, she had done the next best thing. On one of the nights when Victor stays over at Justine’s, she had moved his bed from underneath the window and to one of the corners of the room.</p><p>Though, it hadn’t been easy as she would have liked. It hadn’t been a matter of strength but a matter of unease.</p><p>She hadn’t quite liked the feeling—the distinctive, familiar pinpricks of eyes observing and the raised goosebumps upon her arms—but she had dismissed it readily enough. The room is airy, chilly, and she had just finished reading <em>Dracula</em> then.</p><p>There had been nothing in the window then or in her field of view when she had glanced out, nothing but miles of orange-tinged grass, flowers, and the dimming light of the sun over the swaying treetops.</p><p>Nothing but herself and the distant fence.</p><p>It had been easy enough to dismiss then, slightly more so when she pulled the faded, red curtain over the window—metal curtain rings squealing on the rod like a slaughtered pig.</p><p>When Victor had returned the next day, his backpack in hand, she hadn’t mentioned her actions to him, and he hadn’t asked.</p><p>Instead, she had found him there later—chair pushed up against the wall, he sitting upon the chair, and forearms resting upon the windowsill.</p><p>Victor hadn’t explained then when she had asked either.</p>
<hr/><p>She isn’t deaf.</p><p>She hears what they say about her and Victor, especially Victor.</p><p>“Changeling child,” her neighbors whisper, eyes flitting wary and voice low in a feeble attempt to remain unheard by her. “Should have drowned him in the bayou and not the husband.”</p><p>She shrugs it off naturally. Rumors are rumors, and a town like Postwick wallows in them. There isn’t much choice in the matter, not much else to chatter about besides town meetings, the harvest, and occasionally, a neighbor’s outing to Wedgehurst or even to one of Galar’s larger cities.</p><p>Though, unlike most rumors, it never quite dies out, not when it comes to Victor. Instead, the speculations only accumulate—mist fogging up glass.</p><p>“He should have been a girl,” they continue. “Ill luck and an omen for a boy to be born into their family.”</p><p>It’s all hodgepodge—slander—of course. Her grandmother had been the oldest, living resident of Postwick before her passing, and no one else had quite known as much about the town as her.</p><p>It isn’t that Eliza believes her grandmother now, but she knows bullshit when she sees it.</p><p>Anything said about her and Victor would be mere lies—her family’s genealogy is available in the town’s library as public knowledge after all—started by a jealous bitch.</p><p>It has to be a woman. Men aren’t as prone to this tomfoolery—to this gossip—as women are.</p><p>Rumors. They are just that, rumors—stirred about by people mindlessly following tradition and superstition. She doubts that any of them were actually knowledgeable about her family or about omens. Much like seagulls, they only repeat what they’ve heard from others, squawking and fighting among themselves for the first bite.</p><p>No thought given at all.</p><p>But still, as baseless as the rumors are, they aren’t quite harmless. It is harmless enough to her—she is old enough to understand how people work, how things work in Postwick—but not Victor.</p><p>No matter how strange he can be, Victor is still a child, young and easily affected by the opinions of others.</p><p>It certainly doesn’t help either that children often mimic their parents. That is a problem as well.</p><p>She finds him sitting cross-legged on his bed one night, knuckles rubbing at teary eyes and sniffling. Much like with anything else involving Victor, it takes some coaxing before he speaks.</p><p>It is more difficult than it needs to be, but she eventually discovers the source of his vexation.</p><p>Some girl in his grade—blond-curled pigtails, pristine dressed, and of the name Elinor—and her gaggle of friends. And as these issues often go, it is the simplest explanation: bullying.</p><p>She knows the family of course—Postwick is still small despite its recent and ongoing renovations—and she knows how Elinor’s parents are, benign-voiced and benign-faced until the doors were closed. She had grown up in the same town as them after all.</p><p>Two-faced on every front, and it most likely extends to the daughter. She doesn’t need to witness it to understand what Elinor’s words had mostly likely been. Though, she doubts that the girl actually knew what her parents’ accusations actually meant.</p><p>Nonetheless, she resolves to confront Victor’s homeroom teacher tomorrow. Elinor’s parents wouldn’t be an option; they would probably encourage her further.</p><p>After tucking Victor into bed—thankfully, he doesn’t try to leave for the window tonight—and after her own nightly preparations, she finds herself lying in bed, turning and overly restless. It is an peculiar sort of restlessness, the sort one often feels after reading or hearing a particularly scary story. It is a creeping dread, though of what, she doesn’t quite know.</p><p>Turning on her nightlamp doesn’t help either nor does opening up a novel, <em>Phantom of the Opera</em> according to the stocky letters on the cover. She couldn’t quite concentrate, not with the feeling of dread, and the light only accentuates it—shadows drifting along on the wall, owls hooting outside, the creaking of the ceiling, and the faint scuffling of night’s resident wildlife.</p><p>She couldn’t turn off the lights either. She would simply be back to where she started.</p><p>That is how Eliza finds herself tonight, drifting in and out of sleep and with novel held loosely in hand until her eyes finally close.</p><p>When she wakes three hours later, alarm blinking 5:00 A.M. in blaring red, it is thankfully a normal morning.</p><p>No dread, no strange dreams, nothing of that sort.</p><p>Nothing happens in the bathroom as she brushes her teeth, nothing happens when she makes their breakfast—scrambled eggs, thick-sliced bacon, and lightly browned toast stacked upon iron plates—and nothing happens when she opens the kitchen blinds to let the sunlight in.</p><p>No faces in the window, no blood-drawn messages, nothing of that sort.</p><p>Though, Victor is rather late-rising today—a consequence of his alarm failing to go off most likely.</p><p>When she arrives at his room to wake him, there is nothing strange there either, nothing out of place except perhaps the curtains. They aren’t pulled entirely close, faint light spilling into the room, but still, she dismisses that as well.</p><p>Last night had been a rather difficult one, and she had most likely forgotten to pull them completely close.</p><p>Nonetheless, she doesn’t think much on it. Instead, she urges Victor, still groggy, to the hallway bathroom and then to the kitchen for breakfast.</p><p>That goes well—normally as breakfast should.</p><p>No arguments, no unexpected visitors, nothing strange or out of place.</p><p>Today’s morning is a rather standard affair in most regards, lasting only until she opens the front door.</p><p>Then, she had screamed. Though, it is a rather normal response in her opinion.</p><p>Most people would do the same if they found a half-eaten stallion’s head on their front porch at eight in the morning.</p><p>Dark splotches of flies already gathering—buzzing upon the exposed, reddened muscle of the neck, flitting about the lipless mouth, and crawling into the eyeless sockets—it is the picture of grotesque, disease seeping into the worn wood of the porch.</p><p>The only real consolation about its presence is the lack of pungency. By her estimates, it is fresh kill, one of only a few hours. The heat hasn’t gotten to it yet.</p><p>“Don’t touch it,” she says, pulling Victor back before he could draw closer. She already sees what had caught his attention, a horse tag dangling from the soaked and near-destroyed bridle. She doesn’t need to touch it either. She already knows the owners well enough.</p><p>Elinor’s father, Fernand, never quite shut up about his prized stallion.</p><p>And he doesn’t quiet in the coming weeks either, not that she blames him. Suddenly losing a series of animals—horses to pigs to cows to even chickens—is a devastating sort of blow for any rancher.</p><p>It certainly doesn’t help that the culprit remains uncaught in the coming weeks—not even a glimpse. Neither Fernand, shotgun in hand, nor his farmhands could boast of even seeing the beast.</p><p>It must be a beast naturally. No man could tear into the carcass in such a manner or leave without even leaving even the trace of footsteps. His dogs aren’t much help either, unable to—or unwilling—to track the beast.</p><p>Complicating matters is the lack of a trail—no bones and no blood to follow outside of the stallion head upon her porch—and the singular nature of the attacks. None of the other farms and ranches are accosted in a manner even remotely similar to Fernand’s. Perhaps the occasional missing cow or chicken, but nothing comparable to his troubles.</p><p>But nonetheless, it ends just as suddenly as it begins, no rhyme or reason for beginning or for ending and roughly a month after the “gift” upon her doorstep. She doesn’t think much of it and neither does the town. No one wants to question good fortune, especially for something of this nature. Even with her own skeptical nature, she knows not to question these sorts of things.</p><p>Coincidentally enough, she discovers a week later that Elinor had ceased in her bullying.</p><p>There is no apology from her to Victor, but Eliza doesn’t expect it.</p><p>Children often don’t apologize, not without incentive anyhow.</p>
<hr/><p>It is autumn, eight years after her husband’s death, when the travelers and tourists begin disappearing.</p><p>It is nothing like the television shows or the movies. They don’t find anything of substance—no bits of clothing, no dropped and cracked cellphones, no severed feet in shoes, nothing that belongs to a human.</p><p>That isn’t what alerts them to the disappearances. It is only when the local policemen, spurred by calls from the surrounding stations, begin posting notices and warnings on the telephone poles and when the mayor calls for an emergency town meeting that they find out.</p><p>Worry mixed with pandemonium. That is how she would describe everyone’s reactions. She isn’t much different herself really.</p><p>She worries naturally. She has Victor, and she is a widow. Children and lonesome women. Those are easy enough to take advantage of. It especially doesn’t help that their property is on the outskirts of town, the nearest to the forest.</p><p>Forests, even fenced-off ones, are rather good places to hide bodies.</p><p>She doesn’t tell Victor of course—what sane mother would?—even when an official curfew is drawn: sunset for the children and 10 P.M. for the adults, everyone besides the watchmen. It is a rather lenient sentence considering circumstances, but it certainly did weed out the fools.</p><p>Nonetheless, that is how it goes, and unlike with Fernand’s troubles, it doesn’t end.</p><p>The town only begins plastering the signs over one another when the telephone poles become too crowded—face upon face and notice upon notice.</p>
<hr/><p>Victor takes up cooking as a hobby. It is a rather feminine hobby in her opinion—Adam hadn’t cared all too much for the art outside of necessity—but Victor does take more after herself rather than his father in both interests and in appearance.</p><p>Soft hair, long lashes, and a heart-shaped face with a defined cupid’s bow and a well-formed nose. Even with consideration to his current age, she doubts that he would be anywhere near-describable as “rugged” as an adult. “Lean” perhaps, but “pretty” would be the most likely.</p><p>Perhaps it is a callous statement, but it is an accurate one.</p><p>In her opinion, Victor’s appearance is akin to one of those figures from her grandmother’s storybooks—androgynous, inscrutable, and aloof, more concerned with some unsaid affair than with the outer world. It isn’t an intentional sort of demeanor on his part, but one bestowed by appearance and personal temperament.</p><p>All that Victor really needs to complete his ensemble is a traveler’s cloak or perhaps a prince’s attire—crown, tunic, and golden finery adorning. Then, he would truly be akin to one of those figures from legend.</p><p>Nonetheless, she doesn’t mind his interest in cooking. It certainly would lighten her workload if he becomes more self-sufficient, and it gives him something to do—something to take his mind off of the woods and off the perpetual curfew. Furthermore, it gives them an excuse to spend more time together. She isn’t stupid enough to simply leave him alone with a cookbook and some flimsy instructions, not if she didn’t want a burned down house.</p><p>Though, his inclinations for recipes are rather odd.</p><p>Pastries heaped with an assortment of berries and golden crusted pies teeming with meat and herbs.</p><p>Despite his age, Victor doesn’t have much of a sweet tooth, preferring savory dishes over dessert. He isn’t one for meat pies either, holding a distaste for the texture.</p><p>Naturally, she assumes he gifts them away. He isn’t a voracious eater, and she doubts that he throws them away. Victor isn’t the wasteful sort—it’s much of the opposite really—and she knows for a fact that Hop has a penchant for sweets.</p><p>Though, Victor’s eye for servings is rather skewed. Despite her continued chiding, he continues to make dishes in sizes more fit for four or even five people rather than their measly two.</p><p>By itself, it isn’t quite a drain on their finances—they aren’t that poor—but combined with the recent pilfering of their animals, it is a nuisance.</p><p>It certainly doesn’t help that the thief is a strange one. She could understand if it were two or three animals at once or a rash of thefts, but it is a peculiar sort of thief, one that takes only one or two animal every three months or so.</p><p>It must be a thief and not an animal like Fernand’s troubles a few years back. An animal would not act so sparsely. She understands that times are rough, what with the curfew and the dwindling tourists, but thievery? Shameless.</p><p>But still, she tries not to mind Victor’s poor eye for gauging. Cooking is better, at the very least, than his habit of staring at the woods. He never quite grew out of that as she hoped he would. Instead, the frequency had only increased, becoming a habit of daytime as well as nighttime.</p><p>It doesn’t impede his daily life or his schoolwork—Victor is actually rather bright according to his teachers—but it is a strange habit, one more fit for the mentally deficient or the insane than for him.</p><p>She has already talked to the specialists again, and every time, not one could find anything wrong with him.</p><p>He isn’t slow. That isn’t the problem.</p><p>He is strange, overly so, and that is almost worse.</p><p>At least with a deficiency, there is a physical—understandable—reason for everything.</p><p>With strangeness, there is nothing, nothing but speculation and ambiguity.</p>
<hr/><p>There is a chill nowadays when she is home.</p><p>It isn’t a problem with the heating—she pays on time, and she has a stack of firewood beside the fireplace—but with herself. She assumes it’s herself anyhow.</p><p>After the debacle with Fernand’s horse and the missing travelers, she has taken to sleeping with Adam’s gun beside her, laid upon the nightstand. Perhaps it is a bit of an extreme decision, but she thinks her decision is justified. Most people wouldn’t find such a thing on their doorstep on any day of their life.</p><p>It surely couldn’t be a gift, and it couldn’t be mere mischievous. What reasonable-minded person would see such a thing, such an act, as acceptable? There isn’t any humane explanation, nothing benign.</p><p>It must be the work of animal, but still, what animal would drag the corpse to their doorstep? Fernand’s ranch is located across town, and most animals would hide the remains, not drop it this close to a residence. Furthermore, she hadn’t heard anyone speak of any blood trails in town either.</p><p>Lying upon the porch, it had almost seemed like warning, repulsive and violent. A warning for what, she doesn’t quite know. Perhaps it is only her human sensibilities—beasts don’t think after all—it but she assumes there must be a reason for it, as slim as the chances are.</p><p>There is no real certainty to it, nothing outside of speculation anyhow.</p><p>Nonetheless, nothing good could come from such an event, not for the town or for her nerves.</p><p>Spooked and paranoid. That is how she would describe herself now.</p><p>Perhaps that would explain the chill, the goosebumps and fear rather, but it doesn’t entirely explain the feeling in her gut—the strangeness in the atmosphere of their home.</p><p>Much like the night before finding the mess upon her porch, there is a sense of unease, permeating the air and clinging like mildew. Perhaps it is, once again, her nerves—that would be the most likely explanation for most people considering recent events—or a change in the magnetic fields but those explanations don’t quite settle well in her stomach.</p><p>It seems wrong somehow.</p><p>Though, she doesn’t have much proof for anything else, nothing supernatural anyhow. Nothing becomes misplaced. She doesn’t see any faces in the windows nor does she discover some outlandish horror—blood upon the mirrors, some secret alcove of cursed treasures, a spectre in the attic.</p><p>She finds nothing of that sort.</p><p>There is simply her, Victor, and Postwick.</p><p>Perhaps it is her nerves—Victor isn’t all too bothered by recent events, but he is a rather withdrawn and unorthodox child—but it doesn’t explain everything.</p><p>She doesn’t see faces in the windows or human-shaped shadows roaming about their house, but she does hear a faint clinking, akin to metal bumping against metal, from time to time. At first, she assumes it is the pipes—they are rather old, and the walls are thin—but that had become a questionable explanation once the plumber had arrived.</p><p>He hadn’t found anything wrong with the house—the pipes had been in rather good condition for their age—but she had had them replaced anyway.</p><p>That hadn’t stopped the sound either.</p><p>It is a queer sort of thing: unnerving, wholly unwelcomed, and compounded by the eeriness of the forest outside.</p><p>The Slumbering Weald has always been a strange place—the source of many playground rumors, the source of local legends, both realities and falsities, and the source of Postwick’s superstition.</p><p>But, she had grew up a mere miles from its edge and unlike her mother and her grandmother, she hadn’t put her trust into mere rumor. They, the mere tidbits and scraps she had heard growing up and the stories she has read from dusty library books are merely that—stories.</p><p>There is nothing in the woods, nothing as beastly as the fairy tales and legends would suggest.</p><p>So why—why does the forest bring as much unease as it does now? She couldn’t quite look at the woods—at the distant, swaying leaves and at the gnarled, brown branches—for too long, not like Victor could.</p><p>She still couldn’t quite understand what he found so fascinating about the woods.</p><p>Unlike Victor, she couldn’t spend hours simply looking at the place.</p><p>Not without disquiet anyhow—the feeling of eyes upon her, the faint clicking of metal, and the looming dread.</p>
<hr/><p>Sonia visits on a Monday.</p><p>Sonia doesn’t visit <em>her</em> of course—they aren’t close outside of mere acquaintanceship—but Eliza meets her at Justine’s, and as meetings between adults often goes, it turns into a repetitive game of “How are you?” and other insipid conversation topics, prattle meant to fill time until Justine returns from the kitchen.</p><p>At least until they get to the subject of degrees and universities. More specifically, they get to the subject of her program and of Postwick.</p><p>By trade, Sonia is a professor of anthropology tenured Hammerlocke University. Eliza doesn’t quite understand the appeal of her research area—Galar’s cultural history and the legends of their homeland—but Eliza had grown up around it, bathed in it until she had grown tired of the superstitions.</p><p>For her, more so than for Sonia who had merely moved to Postwick at age seven turning on eight, the myths are merely falsehoods claimed as reality.</p><p>They’re tiresome, stories that have overstayed their welcome.</p><p>Eliza doesn’t insult her profession of course—that is rude beyond belief—but she had merely mentioned the Slumbering Weald, teased lightly about the mishap of her and Leon’s childhood, of the time when she, on a childish dare, had crawled into the forest through a half-hidden hole in the fence.</p><p>She doesn’t expect Sonia to flinch or for her smile to falter.</p><p>“You…you don’t really believe those stories, do you?” Eliza asks. Perhaps, it is rude, entirely so, but she must. The consequences—the reality of everything—would be impalpable otherwise.</p><p>A shake of the head from Sonia.</p><p>“I don’t,” Sonia says after a pause, and Eliza almost sighs in relief. At least until Sonia continues, words careful.</p><p>“I do think there’s something in there though.”</p><p>“R-really?” She couldn’t quite help her stutter. Faintly, she remembers her grandmother’s words, a near-exact replica in meaning to Sonia’s now. “A bear or a wolf, right? We do get those around here.”</p><p>She expects another nod, but Sonia shakes her head.</p><p>“No, something else,” she pauses, considering her words. “When I was in there, I felt like I was being watched.”</p><p>“So you didn’t see anything,” Eliza interrupts. She doesn’t mean to, but the words slip out anyway, tinged with nervousness.</p><p>“I didn’t <em>hear</em> anything either,” Sonia says, unperturbed. “It was just…strange. Everything seemed to stop the moment I entered.”</p><p>Sonia leans back in her chair. “No, that’s not quite right. I did see something, a shadow—a rather large one.”</p><p>“You were lost in a forest. It was probably just nerves. You went quite far in, right? After a flower if I remember correctly.”</p><p>“A berry branch,” she corrects. Despite the callousness of Eliza’s words, Sonia isn’t all too irritated. “It was a berry branch. Don’t remember what kind though.”</p><p>Sonia shakes her head. “That’s not the point though. The shadow…I thought it was a trick of the light then too, but I kept seeing it—a glimpse of it anyway—the farther in I went, always disappearing when I turned.”</p><p>Eliza almost interrupts again, but Sonia holds up a hand.</p><p>“You know Postwick’s history, right? The legends about the harvest?”</p><p>It is more of a rhetorical question, but Eliza nods anyway. Everyone knows about those.</p><p>“Why end it with someone going into the woods if we’ve already sacrificed an animal? Isn’t it counterproductive? Don’t you think it’s weird how we don’t have any records of anyone returning? Certainly, it could be the animals, but <em>every </em>single person didn’t make it out?”</p><p>“You returned,” she couldn’t help but say.</p><p>Sonia shakes her head. “I don’t think I would have if I hadn’t dropped something.” She smiles, wiry and mirthless. “As stupid as it sounds, I got spooked on the way out and dropped my lunch in there—berry bread, some chocolate, and a chicken sandwich. Not exactly high-class food, but it was almost like an offering in a way. Safe passage and all.”</p><p>She is right. It is a rather foolish sentiment, but Eliza doesn’t comment on it.</p><p>“I know it sounds stupid,” Sonia says, “but I really do think that was what saved me. Once I got the berry branch, the place just…changed, more so anyway. The atmosphere just became more oppressive. I already felt like I was being watched, but it was like I was being stalked then—like something was about to pounce.”</p><p>A sigh then before Sonia continues, “That’s how I felt anyway. Awful, especially with the tongue-lashing I got afterwards from my grandma. Berries weren’t even edible.”</p><p>Sonia shifts. “Can we stop talking about this now? I don’t feel comfortable continuing. We were talking about Victor’s and Hop’s resumes, right? They’re supposed to be applying right now, and you and Justine wanted some tips?”</p><p>Eliza nods then. She doesn’t particularly want to continue, not with Sonia’s expression—tense and agitation barely constrained.</p><p>Justine should be about done anyway.</p><p>Tea doesn’t take all too long to prepare.</p>
<hr/><p>This week, they visit the flea market in Wedgehurst.</p><p>It isn’t the most spectacular place—nothing like the boutique-lined boardwalks in Hulbury or Stow-on-Side’s much larger market—but it dazzles Victor anyway.</p><p>Seven-year-olds are rather easy to please at times.</p><p>Despite the ratty nature of some the stalls, Victor bounces between them, eyes flitting excitedly between trinkets ranging from the more subdued, wooden toy soldiers and faded storybooks, to the flashy, kitschy remote-control cars and backflipping toy animals designed to draw the attention of a child. There is an assortment of commodities here today, both hand-me-downs and brand-new goods.</p><p>Though as expected, he isn’t particularly interested in the more mundane stalls, tables stacked with and surrounded by furniture and decorations—paintings, vases, and a variety of other things that Victor thankfully doesn’t touch.</p><p>It isn’t that she doesn’t trust him, but kids are notoriously clumsy.</p><p>Eliza doesn’t expect much as they near the fruit stalls. There isn’t much in the way of toys or children’s books in this part of the market, and she assumes Victor would be hungry, too tired to go for anything else.</p><p>Perhaps she would buy him one of those coconuts with a curly straw jammed through the top—it is more for novelty than for convenience of drinking, but Victor would like it most likely—and some pizza. Wedgehurst’s flea market is rather infamous for its greasy and overpriced food, but one meal certainly wouldn’t hurt him.</p><p>As they near the fruit stalls, however, Victor suddenly beelines, hand leaving hers before going through one of the nearby aisles. Thankfully, for the sake of her heart, the area isn’t too crowded, and Victor doesn’t wander too far.</p><p>When she finds him, he is standing by a jewelry stand, gaze intent.</p><p>“Don’t wander, Victor,” she scolds. “You almost gave me a heart attack. You know how crowded these places get. If you want to go somewhere, just ask me.”</p><p>Victor doesn’t reply. Instead, he only holds up his hand, fingers grasped around a pendant.</p><p>In her opinion, the material and design aren’t particularly memorable—simple silver crafted into a four-pointed star. Or perhaps it is meant to be a mediocre imitation of the sun and its rays? She personally couldn’t tell with the artisan’s decision to set a hole in the middle of the piece.</p><p>Nonetheless, Victor is intent on her buying it. She’s not sure why his gaze is so intent, but he is a child. She doesn’t always understand his whims.</p><p>“Victor,” she begins. “You’re not old enough to wear something like this. Maybe in the future, alright?”</p><p>Victor shakes his head before pushing the pendant once more into her hands.</p><p>“Is it for the dogs?” She doesn’t quite understand why Victor pauses before nodding, but she brushes it off. He could be rather enigmatic at times. “We already have enough tags for the dogs at home. We don’t even have a collar for this, and how are we supposed to mark our information on this?”</p><p>Despite her words, Victor only continues, tightening his grip on the pendant as she attempts to pull it from his hands.</p><p>“I’ll give you the collar free of charge if you pay full price for the piece.”</p><p>Oh right, the stall owner. Her grip loosens slightly as Victor stares at her expectantly.</p><p>The owner continues, “Come on, it’s a good price for sterling silver—flat seventy.”</p><p>“It’s handmade and my own design,” he continues, noticing her disbelief. “Come on. You two are from Postwick, right? I can tell from the clothes. Just this once. For your kid. He can wear it when he’s older.”</p><p>Rather aggressive, but it isn’t like the stall is particularly busy. Unsurprising considering the prices. For the most part, flea markets aren’t exactly the place to sell “high-end” goods—not in Wedgehurst anyhow.</p><p>She opens her mouth to decline—it’s too expensive considering they could get a similar yet cheaper piece elsewhere—but she feels a tug on her sleeve.</p><p>“Please?”</p><p>Victor’s voice is low, surprisingly smooth despite his propensity for silence, and she feels her resolve weaken. He doesn’t speak or ask for much often.</p><p>Another gentle tug on her sleeve, and she finds herself pulling out her wallet.</p><p>She doesn’t know which of the dogs Victor wants it for, but she points to one of the mid-sized collars hanging on the wall. Their dogs aren’t particularly small, but they aren’t behemoths either.</p><p>To her surprise, however, Victor shakes his head before pointing to a different one.</p><p>A whistle comes the stall owner as he picks it—a dark brown leather collar more fit for a bear than a dog—off of its hook. A bit of an exaggeration, but it’s accurate enough in her opinion.</p><p>“What do you own? A mastiff? Bernard? I know those can get pretty big.”</p><p>Eliza shakes her head before looking at Victor.</p><p>“We don’t have any dogs that size. Shouldn’t we get something more…reasonable?”</p><p>Victor shakes his head before looking at her once more. She opens her mouth before closing it. She doesn’t want to argue any further. Victor can be rather stubborn at times.</p><p>They end up leaving the stall a few minutes later—merchant happy, she seventy dollars lighter, and Victor satisfied, collar and pendant wrapped in a brown paper bag and held closely against his chest.</p><p>Seventy dollars is a rather hefty price, but it is worth it to see Victor happy.</p><p>Though, she isn’t particularly happy herself when she finds out that Victor had misplaced them—both collar and pendant—a mere week later.</p><p>Really, how could one lose something that large?</p><p>It is near-incomprehensible.</p>
<hr/><p>“Victor!”</p><p>Her voice is shrill even to her own ears and unsuitable for the current time of night—some time after three in the morning—but she is rather justified in her shouting she believes.</p><p>What sane person releases their own livestock one at a time once per month? It is unfathomable, another leaf accumulating upon the pile that is Victor’s strangeness.</p><p>Foolish, wasteful, and unlike the frugalness she has come to expect from him.</p><p>Victor, at the very least, has the sense to look embarrassed, as much as he could anyhow. He still isn’t the most expressive person even at the age of thirteen. In his hand, he loosely holds a plastic bag of jerky.</p><p>That certainly explains why the dogs hadn’t barked—recognition combined with bribery.</p><p>However, that is as much as she can ascertain. Despite her scolding, Victor remains tightlipped on his motives, not even faltering when she threatens to assign more chores or to extend his grounding by a month from the already substantial five.</p><p>That is how it goes, she scolding and he bashful as they walk back to the house.</p><p>Though, she is a bit hasty, walking faster than necessary. She isn’t particularly fond of being out and about at night—a combination of childhood tradition and the current curfew. Even with the silence of the night, lacking in the familiar owl calls and the scamper of nightlife, it an unsettling sort of atmosphere, further accentuated by the pale glow of moonlight and the flitting shadows.</p><p>After they enter their house, she makes sure to lock the door behind them. They may have the dogs but that doesn’t mean she wants to risk anything. Much like the outside, the house is near-silent, only interrupted by faint ringing from the walls.</p><p>She really should fix those pipes soon. The dripping makes it difficult to sleep.</p>
<hr/><p>There is a strange odor in Victor’s room.</p><p>It isn’t from disorganization—Victor is rather neat—or from an air freshener or cologne spray. The smell is too peculiar for that, too akin to earth, musk, and strangely enough, dry leaves. Rather odd for spring really.</p><p>She would assume that Victor had let the dogs in again—despite her wishes, he always let them in <em>before</em> their bathes—but the smell isn’t quite right. The odor, despite some slight similarities, isn’t an exact match to that of an unwashed dog.</p><p>Furthermore, the odor is too sharp as well, headier and also tinged by the faintest hint of flowers, chamomile or perhaps chrysanthemum, and crisp leaves—autumn in its essence. It could simply be the remnants of a candle, but Victor isn’t the sort to light those while he’s out either.</p><p>She cannot quite place the scent, but she doesn’t exactly want to stand there all day contemplating it, not while there is still tasks to be completed.</p><p>Victor’s birthday, his eighteenth year, is in a week after all, and there are preparations to be made.</p><p>Pushing his rolling chair to the side, she makes for the window. Airing out his room would be the simplest and most efficient choice. Pulling the curtains aside and undoing the window latch, she lifts the window before locking it into place.</p><p>She almost leaves then, but a bit of white catches her eye.</p><p>Loose hairs by themselves aren’t an oddity, but they certainly are when one finds them upon the security bars. As she moves to collect them, her fingers graze the metal, shaking the bars slightly.</p><p>Curiously, she pushes the bars again with her fingertips, hairs held in her other hand. She expects some looseness—they are rather old—but what she doesn’t expect is for the frame to fall over, top half entirely separated from the wall and bottom barely held on by the remaining screws.</p><p>Without the protection of the security bars, the window is more than big enough for anything to enter through.</p><p>Her mind whirls—thoughts repeatedly turning back to Victor’s continually odd behavior, the strange noises over the years, and her conversation with Sonia a few months earlier—as she rushes for the phone. Perhaps it is foolish—the bars are old after all—but she needs to call Victor.</p><p>She doesn’t expect anything odd—he is supposed to be over at Justine’s after all, and he isn’t one to let the dial tone persist for too long either—as she dials his number on the home phone.  </p><p>Once, twice, thrice, no answer.</p><p>Even as the panic bubbles, she, after another failed attempt at contacting Victor, dials in Hop’s number next. The two were often together, and it would be her next best option. Perhaps Victor merely forgot his phone?</p><p>When Hop answers with confusion—Victor had canceled their plans today because of chores apparently—she panics.</p>
<hr/><p>Victor doesn’t return by sunset, and searching through, upturning, his room doesn’t yield much either. His clothes, his backpack, and even his phone are all there.</p><p>Everything, all of his belongings, is all untouched.</p><p>The only real piece of evidence, if it could even be called that, is the hair—an oddly textured mixture of black and white strands.</p><p>She calls the police of course, and predictably, they aren’t much help. It isn’t the wait period—that particular tidbit is a myth borne from reality television—but in the slowness of their actions. For a town still inundated with missing persons and rumors, another one wouldn’t matter, merely being another poster to print and another name for the registry.</p><p>It certainly doesn’t help that Victor never could dispel the rumors about him. Why waste resources on someone unwanted?</p><p>Days turn into nights—amassing into weeks, into months, and finally into years.</p><p>And thus, she weeps.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Philia</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>There's something in the woods.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Next chapter will be posted in 3-5 days. Everything was already done. I'm just trying to space out my postings, so I can have more time to write my next story or most of it anyhow.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Postwick is bland, a caricature and amalgamation of every small-town cliché and stereotype—gossipy hens roaming among the busybodies and superstition interlaced with rumor abound. One could not go a day without encountering superstition or rumor: the grocer who refuses to open before twelve on every other Monday, the neighbor who always carries an iron horseshoe suspended on a chain, and a plethora of other oddities.</p><p>Perhaps it would be a novelty to a newcomer—he certainly knows why people visit Postwick, and outside of the occasional eccentric, it isn’t for sheep-watching or for the cheaper produce prices—but for a long-time resident such as him, Postwick’s complexities and superstitions only come as bothers, abnormalities having become mundane, taking root into flesh and wearing down to white bone.</p><p>Even as a child, Hop had known that he had wanted to leave, counting down the days in his head until university. He couldn’t leave earlier—they don’t have any family elsewhere in Galar, and he doesn’t want to leave his mother alone after Lee’s own departure for Hammerlocke University’s dorm rooms—but still, the thought had nicked at him from wake to sleep.</p><p>He doesn’t want to remain in Postwick forever, surrounded by the same, overly familiar faces and plain-colored buildings, walls painted a quaint tan and plastered with the same sorts of posters and advertisements—seasonal calls for extra farmhands for the harvest season, bargains on produce and animal goods, and the occasional notice about an estates sale.</p><p>Perhaps Postwick would appeal to the ignorant and to old—city folk unaware of the difficulties of small-town life and elderly ready to retire after a lifetime of work—but for Hop, it is akin to a prison, horrid in its simplicity yet beautiful in form: fields of raised green with blooms of reds blending into oranges and yellows coupled with blobs of white and black, grazing cattle and frolicking sheep.</p><p>He doesn’t want to settle down here, marry a girl he has known since childhood, shop at the same one-stop market, or tend to crops and perhaps fruit trees for the rest of his life.</p><p>Nothing happens in Postwick.</p><p>Even the most interesting event of the past eighteen years, the debacle with Fernand, had involved the same old, tired bullshit—animals killing livestock. The year afterward, as cruel as it is to say, is no better. After the initial wave of alarm and newness, the curfew and posters become nothing more than nuisances, another thing to account for as one lives in Postwick.</p><p>Missing travelers are only interesting if one knows them.</p><p>Cruel, but it is human nature. It isn’t that he doesn’t feel for their families—he does—but after years of accumulating posters and no new leads, it merely becomes another normality, a quirk of Postwick.</p><p>The rumors aren’t much better, ranging from the mundane to the mildly interesting and finally to the moderately bizarre. He doesn’t find much interest in them as his mother does. The most he remembers is the occasional cheating scandal and the murmurs of the watchmen, complaints about noise—a near-nightly heavy thumping near the fence.</p><p>“Too heavy to be a wolf,” they say. Personally, he thinks it’s just another animal, exceptionally large for its size and overfed on wildlife. It isn’t like the anyone hunts in the forest. There is no competition for the animals.</p><p>Nothing happens in Postwick, nothing interesting anyhow.</p><p>And thus, he works, he studies, and he perseveres—afternoon after afternoon spent at extracurriculars a town or two over and night after night spend under lamplight and hunched over textbooks.</p><p>He doesn’t want to marry in Postwick, to grow old in Postwick, and to die in Postwick. He doesn’t want to be simply another name in the town’s graveyard.</p>
<hr/><p>Victor is strange, but he is also his best friend.</p><p>Hop doesn’t regret that even if their first meeting—or more accurately, one of the many of their first few years—had been a rocky and awkward one. Even now, the memory brings a blush to his face.</p><p>It could be blamed on youth—they had both been four after all—but he regrets that he had asked on Victor’s mental state. It hadn’t been an eloquent question—rather the opposite really—but it had caused quite the stir among both Victor and the adults present then.</p><p>“Are you a retard?”</p><p>He hadn’t understood the implications then. He had merely heard the word from some of the older kids, mocking and laughter-filled as they had mimicked Victor.</p><p>What he does understand, however, is the quick flash of hurt in Victor’s eyes before his expression returns to its normal blandness and the noise around him—his mother both apologizing to Ms. Eliza and the simultaneous, furious scolding aimed at him.</p><p>Naturally, he had apologized to Victor for his words, but he hadn’t receive much in terms of a reply. Victor has never been one for wild expressions, for obvious displays of affection or for explanations.</p><p>Instead, their friendship is one of action, of quiet familiarity and of quiet warmth akin to a winter night beside a lit fireplace, flames crackling and snow falling outside the frosted windowpanes.</p><p>Hand in hand, he pulls Victor along, urges him to try new things he normally wouldn’t—activities such as art and soccer and even simpler matters such as food and drink—and Victor, in return, restrains him from his more foolhardy decisions.</p><p>They are rather different from one another despite their continued friendship.</p><p>If he were asked to describe him, Hop would say Victor is the thoughtful kind, someone who prefers actions to blunt speech. It isn’t a fault in his personality, a coldness of being, but rather, a disinclination, an almost-forgetfulness to the matter. As bizarre as it is, Victor’s voice is an afterthought, something that perhaps some higher being had jammed in last minute, having forgotten to sew speech correctly in as they were making him.</p><p>Though, that is a rather philosophical or even trite sort of explanation, naïve even in some sense of the word.</p><p>Nonetheless, however, that is how he would describe Victor. Perhaps it is overly whimsical, but that is Victor in his essence—quiet action over animated speech. Victor is the warm blanket he finds draped over himself in the morning on the occasions when he stays over, the soft apology present when he receives a steaming mug of lavender tea after an argument, and numerous other things, both minor and major yet wholly sincere in meaning.</p><p>Victor is akin to the shade of an oak tree or perhaps the wandering cloud on a sunny day, careful yet not inconsiderate.</p><p>Victor is strange, inscrutable even, but he doesn’t mind.</p><p>Perhaps it is an acquired taste—an immunity built up over time and shared hobbies—but it doesn’t matter all too much to him either.</p><p>What matters is their current friendship.</p>
<hr/><p>There is a feeling of excitement when they both receive acceptance letters to Hammerlocke University. Despite his own aspirations, he doesn’t particularly want to leave without Victor. He doesn’t want to be separated. Perhaps it is a fear of growing distant—long distance friendships are rather hard to maintain—but he doesn’t particularly care on the specifics.</p><p>What matters is that they’re together, albeit in different departments—Victor in the humanities as a writing major and he himself with Hammerlocke’s department of anthropology.</p><p>Hop knows that he had a higher chance than Victor. Even with secondary legacy’s lower eight percent increase compared to primary legacy’s twenty-five percent increase, it is a much better chance than the average applicant’s mere five percent chance of acceptance.</p><p>Despite Victor’s scores—perfect since elementary school and perfect even when it came to Hammerlocke’s entrance exam—and his list of extracurriculars, he is competing against thousands of other applicants, both residents and foreigners. A perfect score is certainly spectacular, but average in the grand scheme. Extraordinary becomes average when most serious applicants have the same credentials and more.</p><p>But still, he is rather glad that they’re together.</p><p>Though, he isn’t quite sure why Victor seems so forlorn. He has known Victor long enough to discern his expressions. As bland as they often are, there are quirks, little cracks in his façade, that hint at his feelings—the slight downturn of the lips, the furrow of the brow, and a plethora of other minutiae.</p><p>Asking him doesn’t yield many answers either. Victor has never been the most outspoken or open person.</p><p>Nonetheless, Hop brushes it off, attributes it to anxiety about leaving home. It is a natural sort of reaction to fear the unknown, and Victor has always been reluctant about trying new things.</p><p>Victor would open up in time anyway. That is how it usually goes when it comes to him and these matters.</p><p>They had time after all.</p>
<hr/><p>It isn’t a holiday or some omen-filled day when Victor disappears a week before his birthday.</p><p>It isn’t even a Sunday or some other day of importance instead being a simple Tuesday.</p><p>Rather, they day is bright, overly cheery even—white clouds fluttering upon a blue sky, sun shining upon joggers and their pattering canine companions, and insects buzzing. It is the quintessential spring day, welcoming and vibrant and bursting with birdsong and human chatter.</p><p>He blames himself naturally—Victor had been acting rather odd lately, more so than usual, and he should have noticed—but still, he couldn’t quite understand Victor’s motives.</p><p>He doesn’t think it’s a kidnapping, coercion or grooming maybe but not a straightforward kidnapping. Victor had been too calm for that, too even in tone when he had called earlier to cancel plans. He hadn’t shown any signs of stress before his disappearance either, nothing outside of worries about college anyhow.</p><p>Still, the lack of reason bothers him as much as it shouldn’t. Did it matter what the reason was? Did Victor’s disappearance not matter more?</p><p>He goes to bed as such, worried, guilty, and asleep after hours of restless turning.</p><p>His alarm isn’t what wakes him, however. Rather, it a tap at his window, not quite rhythmic.</p><p>He’s startled naturally—anyone who lives on the second floor would be—but he approaches his window, curiosity overriding wariness.</p><p>He had never been the cautious sort. That trait belongs to Victor.</p><p>Pulling the curtain open, he expects to see nothing—perhaps the noise is simply his imagination or a nighttime delusion?—and he does for the most part.</p><p>There is no spectre, no monster, not even someone below throwing pebbles. Instead, there is only a sprig of lavender upon the sill.</p>
<hr/><p>Once is a coincidence no matter how farfetched, twice is happenstance or a prank, and thrice is certainty.</p><p>Hop receives a total of seven sprigs of lavender, each laid upon his windowsill at roughly the same hour every night—four in the morning. Despite his attempts, he doesn’t catch the perpetrator. Waiting with his window uncovered yields nothing—not until he dozes off anyhow—and  opening it immediately when the tapping begins brings nothing.</p><p>There is nobody waiting below or in the tree beside his house.</p><p>Even the security camera footage isn’t much help. There is nothing but owls and the occasional raccoon when he reviews it.</p><p>But still, as foolish as it sounds, he believes that they, the lavender sprigs, are from Victor—a gift or apology rather. He doesn’t understand the reason why, but he hopes, nonetheless.</p><p>Why else would they appear on the day of his disappearance and end on his birthday? He had considered the possibility of maliciousness—a cruel prank—but that doesn’t make sense either. Once or twice is certainly enough, and Ms. Eliza would be a better—easier—target.</p><p>The town had never quite liked her after all, especially after Victor’s birth.</p><p>Why him? He knows it’s foolish of course—how would Victor even get to the second floor? If he had climbed the tree, he would have seen him.</p><p>Nevertheless, he hopes, irrational and persistent.</p><p>That is how people simply are, hopeful in the face of tragedy.</p>
<hr/><p>Four years later, Hop finds himself back in Postwick and with a new bachelor’s degree in hand. He isn’t quite sure why he had returned to Postwick specifically—he isn’t done with his master’s degree, and Professor Magnolia had offered room and board for his internship with her—but he does, taking residence back in his old room.</p><p>Online classes aren’t his preferred method of learning—too much room for confusion and not enough interactions with other people—but he does what he can, taking what he can online and the rest in a more traditional format in the summer.</p><p>But still, he doesn’t understand why he had returned to Postwick. Professor Magnolia wouldn’t have charged for his stay with her, and he wouldn’t have to wake up as early as he does now—5 A.M. at the latest to catch a ride to Wedgehurst with one of the farmers.</p><p>Memories and nostalgia perhaps?</p><p>They never did find Victor, and his continued interest in the news hadn’t yielded much on his case or the cases of the missing travelers.</p><p>No sex trafficking ring, no organ theft conspiracy, not even a series of animal attacks.</p><p>Like Postwick itself, everything involving him had simply vanished into history and superstition and into word-of-mouth.</p><p>“Changeling returned to the forest.” What fucking bullshit in his opinion. The police had scoured the place with dogs. Nothing had been there, nothing the dogs could find anyway.</p><p>The only remnants that he has are the memories and the mementos—photos, old birthday gifts, things of that nature. Much like the dried lavender sprigs upon his nightstand, they were nothing more than fragments of the past—twisted by his own perception.</p><p>That is how he feels anyway.</p><p>He doesn’t expect any new information regarding Victor, and he doesn’t receive it.</p><p>Instead on the first night of his return, a knock comes at his window, offbeat and soft. He doesn’t expect to find anyone, and he’s right. Much like before, there is no one but him.</p><p>Only a bunch of lavender sprigs, freshly cut, upon the windowsill and the moon above.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Yeah, the sex scene comes next chapter. Personally, it's probably one of my favorite scenes I've written this year since it's one of those "recontexualize" everything scenes. Like most everything else I do when it comes to sex scenes, it's over 3000 words. I'm told that's weird, but tbh, I'm surprised that a lot of sex scenes on AO3 aren't longer since erotica tends to be longer outside of fanfiction.</p><p>Also Hop does come off as a bit callous here, but if you live in a smaller town/city, some stuff really does get boring after awhile, and I see him as a bit too "focused." Like going to the supermarket and walking around is considered "fun."</p><p>I am having difficulty hitting my beat for the current story I'm working on, but hopefully it'll work out. Otherwise, it will go up, but I will be very unsatisfied. It's a bewildering pair honestly, but the idea just wouldn't leave me...</p><p>And as an aside, I am looking forward to the DLC, and personally, I want more Piers since he's a top-tier husbando, but I expect Leon to show up if anyone does since we get his pants and hat as pre-order bonuses+Piers already got the post-game.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Eros</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>There's something in the woods.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Ah yes, the sex chapter. Honestly, this is one of my favorite pieces I've written lately, but I'm also someone who prefers sex scenes with some "bite" and "plot" to them. "Monkey's Paw" and all that. </p><p>I honestly went with this in part because I find ABO/omegaverse not for me (just not my tastes you know? too "bleh" for me), and I wanted to have a complex fic where sexuality comes into play in the themes. Also not into "true" Mpreg. Yeah, I know, bit of a strange statement considering what's in this chapter. Nothing wrong with ABO or Mpreg specifically or liking them, I just don't care for them personally usually.</p><p>End notes are also gonna be a bit long since I'll be talking about the fic and themes and all that.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The breath upon his neck is warm, heady as a humid summer’s day, and the lapping tongue warmer.</p><p>If it had been anywhere else, anywhere but within the forest, and with anyone else, perhaps it would be considered a sensual occasion, less deviant and less obscene, but it isn’t—not that he minds. Rather, he had chosen this, not because of coercion or necessity but because of want.</p><p>Perhaps it makes him as Peter Pan—eternally fearful of adulthood—or as Juliet, foolish and longing and young, but he wants, damning as that is.</p><p>It is simple as that.</p><p>Desire is his reason alone no matter how he will twisted, labeled, by the world outside—fae returning home, victim, runaway. He doesn’t particularly care on their specifics, the words of others speculating and judging.</p><p>He doesn’t care for their truth.</p><p>Truth—truth in the objective sense—does not exist.</p><p>Upbringing and temperament influence one’s speech, one’s action, and even one’s conscious thoughts. There is no such as objectiveness when it comes to humankind, only opinions and desires. Perhaps it is a cynical, distrustful sort of view—it is certainly flawed in some aspects—but it is own.</p><p>That is what matters.</p><p>Another roll of the tongue wets the nape of his neck further before lifting, soon being replaced by the barest touch of teeth—the tips of the canines—upon the sides of his neck and hot breath tinged faintly with the odor of flesh and blood.</p><p>It couldn’t be called a nip or even a graze let alone a bite. Anything more than a mere touch would injure, puncture the skin easily as a toothpick going through an overinflated balloon. A bite would most likely snap his neck, make him go limp as the wild rabbits he sometimes saw the farm dogs carry—jaws clamped around the necks and white-furred bodies swinging freely.</p><p>He doesn’t think his partner will, not now anyhow. Nonetheless, he shudders, shaking involuntary and instinctual. It certainly isn’t helped by his own nakedness—clothes having been folded and neatly set on the nearby log with shoes, socks tucked inside, placed beside—but still, he doesn’t blame his partner.</p><p>This is his choice, another part of their shared game, more playful than anything truly malicious.</p><p>Another press and roll of the tongue slathers saliva along his neck before his partner withdraws with a huff, his equivalent of a laugh.</p><p>They aren’t quite nameless to each other—he himself with a given name since birth and his partner with a nickname born from practicality and fondness—but it certainly doesn’t matter on this occasion. To them both, actions matter more than words.</p><p>It isn’t that his partner <em>couldn’t </em>understand him—more of the opposite really, keen intellect apparent in the eyes and in every movement—but more of a preference. It is easy enough to lie with words and another to do so with action.</p><p>A cool nose pushes against his back, urging him to lean forward, and he complies, palms flat and coming to rest upon the bark of the oak in front of him. The motion almost makes him feel like a bitch being set on a breeding rack—he’s seen his mother set those up enough times to understand the process—but it isn’t quite the same. There are straps to tighten the bitch in.</p><p>Here, there is nothing but the trees, the dirt below and around them, and they themselves. Perhaps a few watching birds or squirrels as well, but most of the forest’s residents know better.</p><p>Another prod—this time at his ass—before a tongue licks at his entrance, pressing inward, wetting his insides, and eliciting a noise from him that isn’t quite unlike the whine of a bitch in heat.</p><p>He isn’t quite used to this sort of attention. Outside of a handful of exceptions, he has never been particularly interested in other people, platonic or otherwise, or in the more risqué magazines and videos he sometimes saw passed around class during break. He has never been particularly interested in touching himself either. There simply hadn’t been any appeal in it to him. Pleasure certainly, but the mess afterwards hadn’t appealed to him—too sticky and too hard to clean without notice.</p><p>There simply is no practicality in the matter of acting upon thoughts, not then anyhow.</p><p>Perhaps that sentiment makes him strange, but he has never been especially normal.</p><p>Nevertheless, he finds himself pushing against the tongue, voice noisier than he would like and intermingling with the forest—birds calling elsewhere, wind whispering, and the shuffling of the leaves overhead.</p><p>His partner’s tongue is nowhere near akin to that of a human’s, texture too different, prickling like that of a cat’s; too thick, and too long. It isn’t disproportionate if one considers the size of the body, but much like his partner himself, it is nowhere near mistakable as human outside of the pink coloration. His partner couldn’t even considered a true biped, instead having more similarities with canids.</p><p>Even the heat is rather different, body temperature noticeably hotter than that of a human’s.</p><p>The only real similarity is the excitement, barely constrained, and the smell of sex permeating the air. He isn’t much different really, panting with nails digging into the bark and cock hard and leaking droplets of pre-cum onto the dirt.</p><p>His partner’s tongue probe deeper, coating his inner walls further, before pushing against his prostrate, and he feels himself arching into the touch, voice shrill as that of a bird’s. He feels some of his nails break as his fingers dig further into the bark.</p><p>Thankfully, he isn’t as noisy the second or third time when his partner’s tongue pokes once more at his prostate, and he hears a low rumble emanate from his partner’s throat—disappointment. Still, his partner licks his prostate once more before removing his tongue, and he feels the saliva drip from his asshole and onto his thighs and the forest floor.</p><p>He feels a bit like a bitch really, more so than before anyhow. It certainly doesn’t help that he is rather disheveled now—sweating, panting, and tongue almost lolling.</p><p>He feels a shift behind him, hears the familiar clink of his partner’s pendant, before the tree shakes—two paws steadying upon the bark and leaves falling upon them—before a firmness presses against his behind, clumsily jabbing at his ass a few times before finally settling and rubbing at his opening.</p><p>Nervous and contradictorily eager. That is how he feels, and he’s fairly certain his partner knows what with how his tongue licks at his hair, tousling the strands further in an effort to reassure.</p><p>Outside of that, however, there isn’t much warning before his partner presses into him, warm fur brushing against his back. It is a careful sort of movement, quite unlike the aggression of before, but it isn’t like they have any other choice, not without repercussions anyhow.</p><p>He doesn’t particularly care for a broken pelvic bone. For the same reason, being fucked while on all fours isn’t an option either, not while everything is still new anyhow. As aptly named as that particular position is, he doesn’t want to be accidently dragged along or perhaps crushed if his partner were to slip or become overexcited.</p><p>Another noise leaves him as his partner pushes in further. It isn’t all too pleasurable initially—spit isn’t the greatest of a lubricant, and the size of the cock certainly doesn’t help either—but he doesn’t complain. He only pants, noises tinged with pain, while a tongue licks at his hair and his forehead.</p><p>After a few moments, he feels his partner stop, knot pressing against his ass, before moving again in a mix of shallow and deep thrusts, not quite pulling out completely each time.</p><p>It is a slow affair, much slower and less frenzied than when the farm dogs had bred, but it isn’t intolerable. Instead, there is a lewdness to everything—in the way the knot pushes against his rear, not quite entering, the feeling of furred muscle against his bare skin, and the way his stomach bulges, gradually rising and gradually falling with each thrust.</p><p>He shouldn’t be getting off on everything as much as he does—on the way his nipples push and scrape against the wood, on the difference in size and species, or on the idea of being bred—but he does, pre-cum leaking more from his cock with each thought, each breath, too animalistic; too breathy, to be mistaken for a human’s even in the near-dark just before sunset, and each sound, skin slapping upon skin.</p><p>He can’t get pregnant—he’s fairly certain of his own sex and of biological limitations—but that doesn’t mean he couldn’t fantasize about it, the idea of his stomach protruding like the women he occasionally saw while at the grocer’s and his tits swelling slightly; nipples red, sensitive, and lactating like the hanging teats of a brood bitch.</p><p>He imagines being fucked in such a way—swollen, expectant stomach obscuring his own dripping, erect cock, milk dripping from perked nipples and lapped up by a broad tongue, and a cock forcing itself into his ass and knotting; semen filling an already full womb and perhaps forcing him to carry another litter, before immediately repeating once more when the knot deflates, cum and saliva spilling from a wrecked and sopping asshole as his partner’s cock plunges into him again and again in a shared pleasure.</p><p>He visualizes being unable to escape, unwilling to rather, and impeded by his own pregnancy. Perhaps he would be taken on all four like an animal, heavy belly sliding along dirt with each push and pull and white cum and creamy milk alike dripping onto the ground from his cock and noticeably swollen breasts—more fit for a woman than a man and more fit to be called udders than human breasts—or perhaps he would be on his back with his legs spread like a whore and asshole gaping, spread open by his own trembling fingers, and presented for breeding.</p><p>A cock, having been aroused from its sheath, would fuck him with abandon then—knot repeatedly bumping against his ass before forcing itself in—while he himself moans, whorish and shameful.</p><p>Perhaps he would try stroking himself as well during the endeavor—fingers curling around his cock with some difficulty because of the motions and his own pregnancy—or cupping his tits with his hands, squeezing until his breastmilk squirts and breasts still bouncing, slapping against skin and pillowy flesh overflowing despite his best efforts.</p><p>He imagines the sounds—flesh slapping against flesh, the squelch of the cock entering and withdrawing from his ass, and growls mixed with his own noises: high-pitched whining, eager moans, and wanton screams.</p><p>He thinks about pleasuring him, about his lips closing around the tapered tip of his partner’s cock and moving clumsily upon the length—cock barely fitting in his mouth, tongue dragging along hot flesh, and saliva mixing with pre-cum and dripping—and about engulfing his partner’s cock down to and around the knot, warming it in his mouth and throat in a grotesque imitation of a blowjob, before it swells, forcing him to swallow every last drop of cum and tying them together.</p><p>He wants to be bred, fucked wildly—near-mindlessly—and forced into pregnancy over and over as a brood bitch would be. He wants to be fucked in every sense of the word—milk-laden and sagging tits bouncing alongside his own leaking cock with each thrust and motion, saliva and cum dripping from both his mouth and asshole, and entirely begging and wanting, voice hoarse from screaming and incapable of anything more than whimpers and pleas of “More” and “Please.”</p><p>He wants to be ruined, made entirely unfit for marriage and fucked hard enough to where he would only crave a knot and an inhuman cock rather than a human’s. It wouldn’t be an especially hard task really.</p><p>Not with what he already knows about himself anyhow. He doesn’t care much for most humans.</p><p>It’s strange, horridly obscene even, but he has never been especially normal, and the fantasy, combined with the thrusts and the shared heat, draws a loud moan from him, and he’s certain his partner has an inkling of his thoughts what with the way he presses back against the knot, overly eager, and with the way the pace quickens without a word, just slow enough to avoid injuring him.</p><p>They’ve known each other for long enough anyhow.</p><p>There is some familiarity to be expected when it comes to their inclinations, both in the romantic and in the indecent sense.</p><p>He tilts his head back and feel a snout push against his lips before a tongue, long and slimy, pushes into his mouth—careful as to not damage skin with the canines or incisors—and nearly into the back of his throat, drawing another moan. Thankfully, he doesn’t have much of a gag reflex. With the faint metallic taste in his mouth—a consequence of his partner’s rather unorthodox diet—he doesn’t think he would have been unable to continue if he had been born with one, not without vomiting first anyway.</p><p>His partner thrusts—knot entering and stretching an already stretched entrance—and he screams, noise muffled by the tongue in his mouth, before withdrawing and repeating the motion, loosening his hole with each motion. Even aided by the slickness of spit and not yet fully inflated, it still hurts. He feels the tongue in mouth withdraw slightly, moving instead to swirl around his tongue and poke at his gums, the inside of his cheeks, and the roof of his mouth. It is a sentiment he returns in earnest, saliva dripping from the corners his mouth, down his chin, and onto his collarbone and chest.</p><p>It’s obscene how disheveled he is—soaked in sweat, voice a mixture of whines and whimpers instead of human speech, and enthusiastically bucking back against the beast fucking him.</p><p>He is fairly certain that his mother, or anyone really, would be horrified if they were to see him now in his current state—mounted and in the act of willing copulation, impregnation—but it doesn’t bother him as much as it should. Rather than shame—or perhaps because it—there is a certain thrill in everything, one that accentuates his pleasure and only draws him closer to his own climax.</p><p>Another thrust buries his partner’s cock and knot in his ass before stopping, and there is a brief pause before he feels the knot swell, pushing and rubbing against oversensitive walls, and warm semen spray his insides, coating them entirely.</p><p>With the knot stretching him further, filling his ass and plugging it, he feels his stomach distend from the excess cum and bulge in an almost pseudo-pregnancy. He’s uncomfortably, pleasantly, full and with the way his bloated stomach presses against the bark and the tongue still roaming in his mouth and against his own tongue, he soon cums, splattering the tree and ground.</p><p>It certainly isn’t helped either by the way his partner’s knot pulses, a consequence of his orgasm, or by how he continues to fuck him—tugging gently and pressing forward in a rocking motion with tip rubbing against his prostate.</p><p>Even when he finishes, cock spurting a few last drops, his partner doesn’t. Instead, his stomach only distends further, skin straining slightly and drawing more noise from him as his body trembles, legs near-collapsing from beneath him. He’s only really kept standing by the knot in his ass, connecting him to another, and the angle in which he leans against the tree.</p><p>After a few more minutes, he feels the stream weaken before stopping after a few more moments, though the knot doesn’t deflate immediately. Much like the sires he has seen, they would be stuck together for a bit longer, a few more minutes or perhaps a half hour if they were particularly unlucky.</p><p>He feels his partner’s tongue withdraw from his mouth before a snout nudges the back of his head, urging him to lean his head forward, and he complies, breath quickening as he does.</p><p>It is rather different to actually see what he looks like—puffy nipples protruding from a flat, muscular chest and a distended stomach—than to simply assume, and he feels his cock perk slightly, aroused again.</p><p>He hears a huff, breath ruffling his wet hair, before a tongue licks the strands, messing them up further. He doesn’t think it’s all too funny, but he doesn’t comment. Instead, they stay like that, cock still buried in his ass and he leaning against the tree, until finally, he feels the knot begin to deflate.</p><p>His thighs are wet—wetter than before anyhow—when his partner begins pulling out, cum gushing onto the floor and onto the back of his legs with a lewd slosh. Disappointingly, he feels some of the pressure in his stomach dissipate, a consequence of both the leaking cum and the lack of a cock in his ass.</p><p>He doesn’t particularly care about how empty he feels now, less full than before for obvious reasons. At the very least, the cum leaking from his ass is more of a trickle now rather than a stream, and his stomach hasn’t deflated all too much instead still noticeably bloated.</p><p>The tree shakes slightly as his partner‘s forelegs return to the ground. He expects some rest then, perhaps a pause, but he feels a tongue push against his ass again, not to prepare him—that’s already done all things considering—but to clean.</p><p>Nonetheless, he finds himself panting again, reactions not particularly helped by the intentional, teasing slowness of his partner’s tongue.</p><p>When he feels the tongue withdraw, he finds himself rather hard again. It is a bit obnoxious, but it isn’t something he couldn’t take care of by himself. He could always relieve himself now or perhaps later at one of the forest’s streams.</p><p>When he turns, he doesn’t expect his partner to nudge his chest, but he understands the meaning well enough. He has working eyes, and much like himself, his partner is leaking again, similarly aroused once more.</p><p>It isn’t a demand, being a request rather, but he finds himself eager anyhow.</p><p>Indulgent of them both perhaps, but he finds himself sitting now—back leaning against the tree and dirt and cum dirtying his backside—before a muzzle pushes gently against his mouth, tongue flicking at his lips in a request that he accepts gladly.</p><p>It is obscene to taste what he does now, but he could say the same about the way his hands grab at and dig into his partner’s fur, overly needy and fingers gripping tightly, about the way his cock twitches when he thinks about being bred, knotted, and stuffed with cum again, or about the way he lifts himself slightly after they separate from their kiss in preparation of another rutting, asshole still slopping and gaping—having been molded perfectly for his partner’s cock and no one else’s.</p><p>But he doesn’t care all too much on the specifics really, not outside of simple acknowledgement anyhow.</p><p>He has always been abnormal—that had been ingrained in him since birth—but he doesn’t care on that either.</p><p>For now, it is enough to be wanted.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>As stated before, this work actually draws its title from Margaret Atwood's Penelopiad, specifically the chapter where the maids talk on anthropology (fascinating subject there if you're interested in ancient Achaeans and those before them). To quote briefly, "The Year King" there is "He who won [the bow shooting festival] would be declared ritual king for a year, and would then be hanged to remember the Hanged Man motif...He would also have had his genitals torn off, as befits a male drone married to the Queen Bee. Both acts, the hanging and the genital-tearing-off, would have ensured the fertility of the crops. But usurping strongman Odysseus refused to die at the end of his rightful term."</p><p>The entire section there has some heavy implications for this fic, and I think it's rather obvious who the "Year King" here is if you've read the work (it's Victor) though the genital-tearing isn't a literal event. Look at how his mother talks about him (unconscious biases or otherwise), how the town talks about him, and even how Hop (unwittingly) views him or acts towards him, that's a big hint to Victor's psyche and all that. Are his mother and him actually close as she believes? See what she focuses on in her chapter. Or is this a case of a parent being unable to connect? Similarly, Hop has much of the same issue, but his is more of a goodhearted nature.</p><p>"Truth," "perception," and the ideas of storytelling also play an important part here much like in Penelopiad. No one should be taken at face value, and it is a bit meta, but Victor's character is rather influenced by the reader as well. How does one view him? As a selfish character who withdraws from society? As someone who took the "last resort" (again, consider his life up until then) in his opinion? Or is it both? Victor's a rather complex character imo even if he doesn't quite tell enough about himself. He's someone who is constantly shackled by the perception of others.</p><p>On Piers himself, he was originally going to get a chapter, but I decided to scrap since it would undo the themes of the fic. How does one view him here? A fae, some ancient god of the harvest, or even as just a "cryptid"? I think there's interpretation for each of them. I have my answer personally. Similarly, I also cut a large portion of this chapter since it was originally going to detail how Victor and Piers come to a bond, but it mucked up the themes as well. I think there's ample evidence that it's not quite just sex at play here (ex. Victor's voice being smooth despite apparently not talking, his late-rising tendencies, the bars being implied to have always been loose and just hung back up every night, the fact Piers even lets Victor collar him, the nightly clinking which is just the pendant hitting against the bars, the entire horse scene, etc.), but I scrapped their first meeting and everything up to this scene. Part of it though, I will say, is that it is because Victor very much wants to "seen" as who he is. Both characters are also rather "shackled" by stories and perception.</p><p>Additionally, Piers was going to go by the name "Nezu" (his Japanese name), but ultimately I preferred the idea of "casting away names" for this section. I even had a scene detailing why Victor even decides to nickname him that.</p><p>Is Piers a "nice" kind of person after meeting Victor? Nah, he still eats people. I hate those "I gave up all my bad tendencies because of love" handwaves. Victor just happens to be his one exception, maybe three if we consider that Victor still holds a fondness for Hop and Leon (who is "Sir Not Appearing in this Fic"). I thought about doing a bonus chapter though with no meaning outside of horny with Leon/Victor/Piers in this fic's setting, but nah, no one would want that. That harvest festival that Sonia talked about was also more bloodthirsty than anything considering her feelings in the woods (ie. death if she hadn't dropped her lunch).</p><p>Also why this? Piers/Victor is fun and lovely, and I love "meaty" fics where there's a lot of themes and ideas into play. I usually write with the idea that one can analyze my works if one wishes to. I dunno what my next project is rn (still closing up on my current fic; very dissatisfied with it) but I'm thinking vampire AU with "Claudia" as the hint for what it entails or Soulmates AU. I hate Soulmates as a trope, and after this, one can probably guess it's gonna be twisted somehow. Or maybe something more "light." If you know me from my SNS, you already have an idea of what each one is.</p><p>Themes: Storytelling, Perception, Fairy Tale, Feminine and Masculine</p><p>Final note, I did not write Victor as a trans character. Saying this to avoid a potential "elephant in the room" situation. I think there would be some rather unfortunate implications on my part if he were written to be trans. He has gender issues, but it's not trans-related this time</p>
        </blockquote><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I wouldn't take everything word for word in this tbh. I designed the chapters to all work together in the sense that you cannot get a complete image without drawing information from all of them. That's pretty given considering what a story is, but what I mean is that everyone is unreliable in some way way or another as a narrator with no obvious answers. I rather dislike stories that "forcefeed" you a set idea and expect you to accept what the author wants/says without thought.</p><p>Sonia's profession is also rather "broad" here but that is intentional as well. Though if you want to know what she specializes in, she's a sociocultural anthropologist.</p><p>The Romantic Gothic elements are also rather flipped at times also. That's intentional as well.</p><p>Also, my tags are always rather strange aren't they? A mix of "serious" and "risque."</p></blockquote></div></div>
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